Monday, April 30, 2012

No one really likes to talk about it. But wineries are
afraid. Lives and reputations are at stake. Am I speaking about Antonio Galloni
taking over from Robert Parker? No. No one cares about that. The Pope dies,
white smoke comes from the Vatican,
and Pope Antonio the First carries the scepter and Holy Tastevin. Nothing
changes but the size of the ring you kiss. The ring around your guest house
bathroom tub. Am I speaking about the slow pace of the economic recovery? No. Wineries
quickly adjust, they are remarkably adept at losing money in every sort of
economy--it’s what they do. And superbly. Am I speaking about climate change?
No. Wineries welcome climate change. The vast majority of them have the wrong
varieties planted in the wrong place anyway. Climate change gives them a shot
at a good vintage like they’ve never had before. So what is it that wineries
don’t want to talk about, yet fear?

Wine Terrorism!
(Cue the theme from “Psycho,” or “Love Story,” you choose)

I wasn’t able to get any wineries to speak on the record
about these dangerous and well-organized groups for fear of being targeted. But
the fear in their eyes when I brought up the subject spoke volumes. Who are
these terrorist organizations, you ask? Here is a brief list of a few of the
wine terrorist groups wineries fear the most.

No Added
Sulfighters

Led by their notorious founder, Alice “the Gravedigger”
Feiring, the NAS has made it their job to ruin wineries that adulterate their
wines by adding sulfites. This is a very dangerous group, unafraid to use
whatever means necessary to destroy their enemies. The NAS believes that adding
sulfites is unnatural, like wearing panties on your head, or eating your own or
someone else’s bougars, or getting enjoyment from wine. And it must stop. At first,
the NSA used propaganda, spreading the word that sulfites were harmful and
caused headaches in white women. They lobbied to have the words “Contains
Sulfites” added to wine labels, as though it wasn’t the alcohol that would kill
you first. Yet wineries continued to add sulfites at bottling. NAS escalated
its attacks, resorting to violence and mayhem, and, even-worse, name-calling.
Their first attack used nerve gas. Twenty members of NAS wearing ski masks
entered the tasting room at Rodney Strong Vineyards and, while shouting, “Kiss
my SO, too!” simultaneously released deadly sulfur compounds—from their pants!
Frightened and startled guests panicked, thinking they’d mistakenly landed in
the Sierra Foothills, and in the stampede that followed several Millenials were
hurt when they inadvertently sobered up and heard how everyone hates them.

In another incident, which wineries and Homeland Security are reluctant to talk about, the NAS filled a windowless van with explosives made from fertilizer packed into cow horns. Only luck and an anonymous tip foiled the NAS plans. Had the van exploded, it would have been a terrible example of Carbombic Maceration.

How far will the NAS go? Wineries are scared. Owners have
received late night phone calls from The Gravedigger, most threatening, but a
few just asking to see if they wanted to talk and what they were wearing.
Bottling line operators report that they’ve had to put their sulfites under
lock and key. In one famous case, an NAS operative infiltrated one winery and
was able to switch the sulfites to sugar before the wines were bottled. The
Rombauers are still scared, though sales of their wines have skyrocketed. The
NAS says they will not stop until every offending winery is punished. And
offending, well, it’s what most wineries do.

TCA Baggers

The TCA Baggers are an ultraconservative group led by the
mysterious Sheldon “Screwy” Stelvin. Very little is known about the group,
their activities and whereabouts are kept under a very tight seal--that you’d
think would be easy to crack. Their goal is said to be the elimination of all
other closures for wine besides the Screwcap. “We believe that a wine’s life
begins when it’s first screwed,” Screwy Stelvin wrote in his seminal (semenal?)
manifesto, “A Tree Barks in Brooklyn,” “and that those who continue to abort a
wine with TCA-laden corks should be killed, jailed, or forced to judge
Cab/Syrah blends from Paso Robles.” Dangerous words, indeed.

Cork forests in Portugal have
had to install elaborate security systems to keep TCA Baggers (known as "Quercus
Clowns" to authorities for their habit of piling 20 members into a Mini-Cooper)
from poisoning the ancient oaks. No one is allowed into the forest before he is
screened for explosives, hazardous materials and ah-so’s. Even so, there have
been breaches in security. In one famous case, a suicide bomber was able to get
access to a cork oak forest. His bomb badly misfired, however, and he simply
pinged around the forest off the trunks of the oaks for about thirty-five
minutes.

Alc Hide-a

The most dangerous of all the wine terrorist groups, Alc
Hide-a is led by the elusive and brilliant Osama bin Dealched. His band of
terrorists insist that wine over 12% alcohol is against God’s will, a sin that
deserves death, and lousy with food. Alc Hide-a is the most sophisticated of
the terrorist groups. New recruits are flown to secret training facilities in San Francisco where they
are indoctrinated in the evils of high alcohol by terrorist sommeliers secretly
pledged to the teachings of bin Dealched. While Homeland Security designates
all sommeliers as suspected terrorists, they usually don’t bother spying on
them. Sommeliers are notoriously easy to track. Just follow the trail of snoot.

Once indoctrinated, new recruits are taught to infiltrate
normal society to spread the word that lower alcohol wines are better, while
wines that are luscious, rich and satisfying are unnatural, corrupt and provide
far too much fun. Wine, Alc Hide-a believes, is not meant to be fun; rather, it
is meant to be brought to the table in order to rob a meal of as much pleasure
as possible, joys of the flesh being sinful and the work of Satan. They point
to all the dead winemakers in Hell as proof.

Osama bin Dealched is believed to be hiding in the emotional
desert of Napa Valley in a remote wine cave. He leads
tours for wine club members only.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Yes, I know you’re all
sick of it, which assumes I write this blog for anyone aside from myself and
the sad little alien who lives in my mailbox, W. Blinky Gray, but Andy Rooney
won’t leave me alone. He has a lot of opinions about wine and the wine
business, and now that he’s not broadcasting any more, because HE’S DEAD, he
has asked me to communicate his thoughts and grievances. Be grateful. I could
easily be channeling other dead guys, like Chester A. Arthur and his wife Bea. Or James
Suckling. We are at a turning point in the world—there are as many dead people
to talk to as there are living people to talk to. But the dead all speak a
universal language. Insanity, in which I am fluent.

ON ALCOHOL LEVELS

There’s been a lot of discussion in wine chat rooms and on
wine blogs, you know, places where really sad and lonely people hang out to try
and impress each other with their knowledge of a subject that is deeply and
genuinely meaningless, about how much alcohol is appropriate for wine. They
never say anything that makes any sense. Wouldn’t it really be for the best if
wine didn’t have any alcohol at all? Then we could get rid of that stupid
warning label on every bottle of wine, and pregnant women could start operating
heavy machinery again. I’d like that. A woman in a hardhat arouses me, maybe
because it’s been a long time since my hat was hard. And if there weren’t any
alcohol in wine we could drink a lot more of it. Wine wouldn’t be about
quality, it would be about quantity, which would eventually bring down the
prices of even the most expensive wines. Imagine a 2009 Chateau Lafite selling
for twenty dollars. Without the alcohol, it’s probably not even worth that. In
fact, Lafite is utterly worthless without alcohol. Yet this is the thanks
alcohol gets. People want less of it in their wine. These hypocrites who run
their mouths off about alcohol levels pretend they don’t drink the wine for the
alcohol. They say they care about “balance.” Like you’d rather date an anorexic
gymnast than a nice drunk girl. Just drink the wine and stop reading the
alcohol percentage listed on the label. You sound like an idiot.

Yeast work hard to create alcohol, and then they die. Those
people babbling in chat rooms should do the same.

ON MERLOT

I wish everyone would stop talking about Merlot. Merlot is a
subject more tired than Madonna’s vagina. I can say that, I’m old and dead.
Remember when Merlot was the most popular red wine in America? Every
restaurant offered Merlot by-the-glass. I started to think Clos du Bois was
Blanche’s other sister. “I have always depended upon the blindness of
strangers.” It wasn’t long before every wine writer and expert was complaining
about Merlot. They said it was ruined by its success, it was planted in all the
wrong places, and only inexperienced wine lovers were dumb enough to order it
when superior wines like Syrah and Sangiovese were available. But people kept
on buying it. It’s easy to understand
why the wine experts were upset. Merlot had become popular even though wine
critics hadn’t been pushing it, in fact, it was popular despite them.
Sommeliers hated it, but it outsold everything on their esoteric, ego-driven
wine lists. Wine experts don’t like it when the public ignores what they say
and order what they enjoy. Wine isn’t actually about drinking what you like,
though that’s what they always tell you. It’s about drinking what they like.

Then Merlot became unpopular. Most people think it’s because
of one line in a bad movie called “Sideways.” Paul Giamatti, who I think is the
Merlot of actors, I just wish he’d go away, he’s starting to seem cheap, says,
“I won’t drink any f***in’ Merlot.” This line supposedly ruined sales of
Merlot. It didn’t. Hollywood
likes to take credit for everything. Except “John Carter.” And Fatty Arbuckle.

But once Merlot was declared dead, the critics decided to
resurrect it. Now everyone is trumpeting the virtues of Merlot. Merlot is
underrated, Merlot is making a comeback, Merlot should run for President on the
Green Tea Party ticket. Many of these are the same people who couldn’t wait to
see it die--wine journalists and sommeliers. For some reason, they just like to
yammer on about Merlot.

I have a fondness for wine gizmos, I think all men do. Women
don’t really like gizmos as much as men, they’re more practical and more
intelligent. But they buy gizmos for their boyfriends and husbands, like how
you buy chew toys for your dog. Give him something to do. It isn’t really a
bone, but it sure seems like your dog thinks it is.

I have a bunch of those wine gizmos here. This one is a grey
rubber valve that goes into the neck of an open bottle of wine. Then you take
this white gizmo and pretend you’re pumping all of the air out of the bottle.
I’m sure they got this technology from NASA. I’m not sure what kind of boob
thinks this works, but pumping this thing up and down makes boys happy. I don’t
have to tell you why. They all want to do it at least once a day.

Here’s one of my favorite gizmos. It’s an aerator. See, you
put the wine glass underneath it, pour your favorite Pinot Noir through it, and
the wine bubbles and froths and goes into the glass filled with oxygen. This is
supposed to make the wine taste better. All the science says it doesn’t, that
you get the same result just pouring the wine directly into the glass, that the
effect of oxygen on wine takes an hour to happen, but this is fun. It’s like
being a mad scientist. Or maybe Fatty Arbuckle. And people actually believe it
does taste better immediately after going through an aerator, but these are the
same people who think assigning numbers to wine is science too. We need to be
nice to them.

I don’t know about you, but when I go to a wine lover’s
house and he has a bunch of gizmos, I wonder if he actually knows anything
about wine. Wine isn’t about toys. Sex is.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Wine Advocate
hired the firm of Spin, Misdirect, Obfuscate, Kneejerk and Evade (SMOKE) to
investigate whether the conduct of Dr. Jay Miller had compromised the standards
of independence expected by The Wine
Advocate. We focused on two questions:

1. Did Jay Miller receive anything of value, other than
money, prestige and complimentary burro rides, for visiting a winery, tasting a
wine for review, or promising inflatable Robert Parker dolls to grateful
importers?

2. How could there possibly be confusion between Jay
Miller’s tastings conducted for The Wine
Advocate and “private” seminars the jackass didn’t tell Mr. Parker about
for which he was handsomely paid though he spoke in gibberish the whole time
and mostly complained he didn’t get enough respect from those other jackholes
that review wines from The Wine Advocate
who call him Mr. Toad.

To answer those crucial questions in the manner expected,
SMOKE reviewed documents, emails, invoices, cigarette butts, doctored expense
reports, junk mail from erectile dysfunction cures, blog posts, financial
statements, and old reruns of “The Cisco Kid.” All while still searching for
Nicole Brown Simpson’s real murderer (who we now suspect is the blogger Jim
Budd, but that’s ultimately only speculation). The investigation concluded that
Jay Miller is simply stupid. This is not the fault of The Wine Advocate. It’s simple genetics. You can’t hold someone
responsible for genetics. He’s a naïve idiot, and that’s what everyone whose
ever met him would tell you. We wish
we’d never heard of him. In the light of all the evidence, SMOKE also has some
recommendations for The Wine Advocate
to avoid any future appearances of impropriety.

Jay Miller’s Assignment in Spain

After working with Pancho Campo, M.W. (“Crook”) and The Wine
Academy of Spain (“Pendejos”) at a Wine Future event, Robert Parker asked Crook
if he would be willing to help Toady with logistics and translations during his
Spanish wine assignments. The only phrase Jay Miller understood in Spanish was,
“Yo quiero Taco Bell!” Crook agreed to help, at no charge, though he seemed to
have a severe twitch in his right eye. From that point on, Crook assisted Toady
with the logistics of his trips, helping with itineraries, providing
translators, and reminding him that 90 in American converts to 96 in Euros.

During the course of five trips to Spain, Crook
provided three services to Jay Miller. First, he booked approximately 85% of
Toady’s appointments for only a small service fee taken directly from the
pockets of the member wineries of Pendejos. Our investigation concluded,
shockingly, that no one at The Wine
Advocate was aware of how deeply Crook was involved in the scheduling of
Toady’s winery visits. They thought he was using Yelp. Second, he arranged for
Jay Miller to speak incoherently to members of various regional Spanish wine
associations in exchange for a speaking engagement fee of $8000 to $10,000. Had
Dr. Miller not been associated with The
Wine Advocate, his expertise in Spanish wines would have merited a fee of
bus tokens and week-old tortillas. Oddly, he did request the week-old
tortillas. In part, because of the language barrier and the tendency of the
Spanish winemakers to laugh uncontrollably at Miller’s Spanish wine knowledge,
Crook handled the contracts and negotiations. Again, there is no evidence that
anyone associated with The Wine Advocate
had any idea how stupid Jay Miller is. It is not incomprehensible to believe
that a man with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology could be handily fooled by an
M.W. An M.W. is exquisitely trained at fooling people. We get it, what’s wrong
with you? The guy’s a dunce who doesn’t understand people, and Crook is a known
con man. How is that The Wine Advocate’s
fault? Third, Crook, as a practicing M.W. assisted Jay Miller in adjusting his
scores, which was damned nice of him when you think about it.

No Evidence of Impropriety

Impropriety? No. Stupidity? Si.

The investigation spoke to many D.O.’s, private trade groups
and winery associations and every one of them signed napkins to the effect that
they were never under the impression that helping fund a lucrative speaking
engagement for Dr. Jay Miller might possibly lead to a winery visit or
favorable mention in The Wine Advocate.
“What are we, Mexico?”

Furthermore, there was no evidence that Toady received any
direct payments for visits to any wineries or organized regional tastings.
Crook always took his cut first.

Jay Miller’s Resignation

Toady had planned all along to resign from The Wine Advocate. Hey, the guy’s
stupid, but even he knows to quit while you’re ahead.

Recommendations

Based on SMOKE’s investigation, it is recommended that The
Wine Advocate implement the following measures:

1. Award Higher
Scores. In order to replace Dr. Miller in the eyes of the wine community
while simultaneously deflecting criticism among Blobbers, The Wine Advocate
should award higher point scores. 2009 Bordeaux
would be a good place to start. Moron Blobbers will jump on that and forget all
about this scandal, well, if it were a scandal, which it isn’t, that’s what we
found.

2. Decline to publish
Toady’s scores for Spanish wines written after June 30, 2011. Whether he
was guilty or not, and we just convinced you he’s innocent and The Wine Advocate always knew he was
innocent and, dammit, we were hired because he was innocent and they knew we
knew how to make him innocent, his reviews should not be published. The Wine Advocate does not publish
reviews from innocent contractors.

3. Continue the Practice of Actively Supervising
Contactors' Reviews. Robert Parker
occasionally conducts his own tasting of wines reviewed by his contractors, in
general, but also, specifically, the highest rated wines. Not because he doesn’t trust
them. No, why would he not trust a clinical psychologist to be a wine guru?
Hell, Parker sometimes counsels families. Grace Family, Benziger Family,
Jackson Family, Manson Family… Parker never once in the past took issue with Jay Miller’s
ratings. This may require a separate investigation.

4. Make revisions to The Wine Advocate’s Writer Standards. Because,
really, it isn’t made clear that working for the most influential and powerful
wine publication in the world demands that you at least give the fucking
impression that you’re not for sale. What are we, Mexico?

Monday, April 16, 2012

Every trip to the
mailbox is an adventure when you’re the HoseMaster, and not just because it’s
where my little alien friend lives. I call him W. Blinky Gray because he’s very small, has a gigantic head, loves
the sound of his own voice, and hurls little tiny turds at me. No, it’s an
adventure because I never know when I’m going to receive yet another nasty
piece of hate mail. I’m not sure what I do to deserve the deluge of dislike I
endure. I try to remember the advice my late mother always offered, “If you
can’t say anything nice, say it loudly.” Here are some wonderful examples from
my recent foraging among my voluminous hate mail.

I guess I should have
expected this one…

Dear HoseBastard,

Sure, you make fun of me going to prison, but you don’t know
the half of it, Fart Water. Those 2009 Bordeaux
that Mr. Big Shot RP (Ridiculous Palate) gave those inflated scores to, guess
where he got ‘em? Yup, that’s right. I sold them to him. All 19 of them! And
they were all Pontet-Canet I bought for $50/btl at BevMo and recorked and
relabeled at my house in Altadena. Funny,
right? Everybody’s giving him crap for giving them all 100 points, but why
wouldn’t he?—they’re all the same damn wine! Starts to make sense now, doesn’t
it? Hey, give it to the guy, he’s consistent. He knows the same damn wine when
he tastes it. He just doesn’t know it’s the same damn wine. Oh, the 99+ wines,
those were Pontet-Canet mixed with Yellow Tail Shiraz. Shit, the thought of
Yellow Tail makes me feel lonely here in prison.

And like I’m the only fraud out there. What about you? You
steal jokes and relabel them, what’s the difference? All I did was give people
cheap thrills, mostly shithead Millenials who think Dujac is that thing you put
on your car that tracks it in case it gets stolen. Sure, they busted me for
making a stupid label mistake, but there’s a lot of wine out there that is
fake. I’d estimate that 90% of the pre-1965 Burgundy sold in restaurants is fake. Funny
thing is, the fake stuff tastes better. Take it from Dr. Conti, the only thing
that smells worse than forty year old Burgundy
is orange wine. Orange wine! How stupid is that? It’s the wine equivalent of
white people appearing in blackface.

If I were you I’d be careful about calling people frauds,
HoseMustard. What I did made people feel better about themselves, which is more
than you can ever say. I made those suckers feel important. Ten dollar wines
can’t do that unless they’re labeled like thousand dollar wines. I made those
guys feel better about themselves. I did it to be nice.

Sincerely,

Dr. Conti aka Rudy from “The Cosby Show”

I confess this letter
came as a complete surprise. I wonder who wrote it for her…

Dear Mr. HoseMaster,

The most important grape in Napa
Valley is Pinot Noir, and like that
native of the Loire
Valley, the Wall Street Journal strives to be the
most important voice in wine journalism. I write simply and directly, making
certain that I convey my facts gently and concisely to the highly educated
swindlers and Mammon worshippers that read our publication. I’d appreciate it
if you’d refrain in the future from pointing out the dullness of my subject
matter—I choose my subjects only to highlight that same dullness in my voice.
It’s called WRITING!

If you read my work carefully, which only requires an
elementary school education and a truckload of NoDoz, you’ll discover that it
is loaded with insight and surprise. For example, I recently wrote about Napa
Valley Cabernet and revealed that many of those marvelous wines over $100 are
blended with Merlot! I noted that it was a good way for wineries to unload
their unwanted Merlot and, essentially, water down their expensive Cabs. You
can only imagine the shock waves this caused in the industry. But there’s more
to come. Just wait until I reveal that many of the Merlots are blended with
Cabernet! I know, it’s hard to fathom, but this is the sort of back-breaking
journalism I pride myself on. (Oooh, did you get that surprise? I talked about
Merlot and then I said “Pride,” like the winery that specializes in Merlot.
This is the kind of inside stuff I know those creepy suits who read WSJ won’t get, but I do it for all the
wine experts that read my work. I’ve been told they laugh at everything I
write! Isn’t that wonderful?)

Your blog isn’t funny, Mr. HoseMaster. What’s funny about,
“She puts the ‘teague’ back in fatigue?” You’re a sad, pathetic blogger. You
treat your readers, if you have any, like they’re smart and wine-savvy. I don’t
think anyone likes that really. Not when you have the WSJ to teach you about wine.

Go fuck yourself,

Lettie Teague

Finally, a letter I
will long treasure…

Dear Slut,

So the people at Belvedere call me to help with an ad
campaign. We talk, and I realize we’re on the same page. We both want to bring back what this
great country of ours needs now more than ever—misogyny. Our Forefathers, the
men who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and the
original pilot for “The Jeffersons,” they were proud misogynists. They didn’t
give women the right to vote, or to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Those
things are for men! Misogyny is what this country has been missing the last
forty years since those FemiNazis started taking over, though FemiNazis is an
insult to my Third Reich friends. But, Sir, my friends in the media and I are
bringing misogyny back, and bringing it back with a vengeance. And I’ll thank
you and your stupid blog to stay out of it.

I’m going to be working with some wineries and some wine
regional associations on ad campaigns as well. Wine is the bastion of men, like
football and cigars and Oxycontin. I’m sure a jerk like you thinks women should
be allowed to smoke cigars after sex. All of my ex-wives smoked cigars after
they had sex—I could smell it on their clothes when they got home. And it’s just
not right. It’s unnatural.

So here’s a couple of ideas I have for ad campaigns for wine
that will help bring misogyny back where it belongs. I love Australian dessert
wines, so how about a picture of a guy talking to a sexy girl at a bar and he’s
saying, “I prefer mine sticky.” Hilarious, right! Or there’s this idea I have
to sell Port. It’s a photo of two hot black
sluts and the caption says, “You can have Ruby or Tawny any time you want.”
Whoo, Boy, this is classic stuff. One more, one more… A picture of a broad
wearing a short skirt swirling a big glass of red wine and the caption says,
“It’s not the legs, it’s what comes between them.”

And once we get misogyny back, it’s on to killing miscegeny.
Though that our forefathers liked.

You’re not funny and I’d have paid your mother to have used
birth control,

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Nothing cheers me up faster than a dame pointing a heater at
my melon. Crystal
was still sporting that dead smile, and the way she handled her piece I knew
she’d had plenty of experience with guns. I was as nervous as Marvin Shanken at
a harpoon factory. But I was having a change of heart about not wanting Crystal
Geyser for a client. I was also definitely needing a change of underwear.

“Please, HoseMaster, I need your help. If you don’t help me, I don’t know what I’ll
do!” And with that, she aimed the gat at herself, the barrel gently pressed
against her temple. I didn’t think she’d actually pull the trigger, splatter
her brains all over my walls like a Jackson Pollack label for Mouton. But I
wasn’t going to take any chances.

“Put the gun down, Crystal.
I’ll take your case. I know I’m going to regret this. The whole M.W. game
stinks like orange wine. But, hell, I’ve got nothing going on right now, maybe
I can finally nail some of those pompous bung sniffers.”

I slowly stood up and walked over to Crystal. She let me take the gun from her
hand. I could see in her perfect brown eyes, the color of 40-year-old Tawny Port,
20-year-old per eye, that she hadn’t planned on killing herself. There was a
lot going on behind those eyes, a cold calculatedness that sent a shiver down
my spine, like watching a sommelier walking toward you with a wine list. You
want to run, but you don’t. And you end up enduring a long speech about the
wonders of Grüner Veltliner, how versatile it is with food, which it is, if
your dinner of choice is Tender Vittles. You should run. I should have run.

Crystal
put her arms around me and pretended she was about to faint. I could feel my
Tender Vittles tingling. She pressed herself against me; it was a very gentle
press, and I was briefly fearful I’d release some free run juice. I could smell
her skin, it had lovely minerality, like a Grand Cru Chablis, or maybe not, it
was Les Clos call. She pulled me closer and I knew she wanted me to kiss her.
Her lips were slightly parted, moist and beckoning. I knew it was wrong, but I
kissed her. Her tongue threw out the Welcome mat and invited me to her tonsils.
I explored the inside of her mouth like a lingual spelunker. My meat
thermometer was harder than a barrel sample of Madiran. I could have taken Crystal right there in my
office, but I have a rule about sleeping with clients. Not until the middle of
the book.

“Thank you, HoseMaster, thank you. I knew you’d help me.
When can you start?”

“Start? Hell, I’m almost finished.”

“I meant on my case.”

“Oh, I guess I can start right away. What was your friend’s
name? The one who was murdered?”

“His name was Larry Anosmia.”

I was shocked. I knew Larry Anosmia. He was an M.S. I’d run
into in an earlier case. Ran around with midgets. He even got shot because of
me. And now he was dead, six feet under. I wondered what happened to the
midget. Maybe he was dead, too. Three feet under. So Larry had decided to
pursue an M.W., somehow met up with Crystal,
was undoubtedly spraying his gunite in her wine cave, and ended up getting his
throat slashed. Can’t say I’d miss him. Though at least now he’d finally become
a good M.S. But I didn’t want Crystal
to know I’d met Larry Anosmia before. I still didn’t trust her. I just hoped
she was still going to be around in the middle of the book. Crystal
was better endowed than Stanford
University, and had
probably received as many incoming freshmen.

“And this Larry Anosmia, where did you meet him?”

“At one of my wine tasting parties. I invite men who are
studying for their M.W. over to my house and open rare wines for them. To help
them study. It’s how I met all my friends who were murdered.”

“How many ‘friends’ of yours have been killed, Crystal? What kind of
madness is going on with the M.W. program?”

Crystal’s
eyes began to moisten. This time I didn’t think she was faking it. Had she
really loved Larry Anosmia, and all the others? What kind of pathetic soul
would fall for a bunch of wine dweebs? And how much could it be simple
coincidence that Crystal
had been involved with so many victims? And, why, I wondered most of all, was
she so insistent about the HoseMaster being her private dick?

Monday, April 9, 2012

Over at ImTanked, a
blog written by a Social Media Expert (the word “expert” is appended to Social
Media in exactly the same way “star” is appended to Porn), a recent post listed
the “Nine Most Important Wine Bloggers in the US.” Must be nice to be the President
of Wine and get to appoint the whole Supreme Court. The post resembles nothing
so much as a fourth-grader choosing up sides for a game of kickball. “So I’ll
take Alder because he’s my best friend, and 1WineDoody cuz he’s so cool and
recommends wines to boys who like tits, and Tommy Wark—he uses such big words…
But no girls! We don’t want girls on our team. Girl bloggers have cooties.” I’m
also pretty sure the list was chosen by height, or lack of it. The nine
bloggers standing on each others’ shoulders might not be able to unscrew a
light bulb. Or a porn star.

The post is an
exercise in the obvious, which, after all, is what wine blogging is about. I
give its author, Paul Mabray, RFD, credit for that. Naturally, I was stunned
and hurt that I wasn’t on the list. HoseMaster of Wine is clearly one of the
Most Important Wine Blogs in the US, as well as many foreign countries, like Oregon. And I'm pretty short, too. But he has a
right to his dull and predictable opinion. And, let’s face it, being one of the
“Most Important Wine Bloggers” is a lot like being one of the “Most Interesting
People in a Coma.” For members of either list, you can only pray for brain
activity.

Naturally, I have my
own list of Important Wine Bloggers. Behold!

Wright R. Block (www.aposteveryyear.com)
–Block was the first wine blogger to stumble upon the idea of publishing a blog
for the sole purpose of soliciting free tastings and samples from wineries. A
title and a business card, that’s all you need. He ran out of ideas for his
blog after ten posts, hasn’t run a new piece in four years, yet he continues to
find ways to freeload in the wine business. An inspiration to all wine
bloggers.

Heywood Jalookatme (www.simplewinesforsimpleminds)
–Heywood stepped into the void left when Gary Vaynerchuk was moved to the Old
Circus Chimps Home in Florida
(where he roomed with the primate star of the old “Tarzan” movies—who says
Cheetahs never prosper?). Heywood writes for the Everyman, speaking to ordinary
wine lovers in language they can understand--monosyllabic. He may not have been the first to
talk to wine lovers like they’re stupid, but he’s still the best. His style is widely imitated, as is his standard reply to critical comments,
“Go Wark yourself.”

Luce Morals (www.winemakesmetingle.com)
–Luce is certainly one of the most important wine bloggers. The first to ask
readers to “join me on my journey to learn about wine!,” she inspired hundreds
of new and equally worthless wine blogs. Now, five years later, Luce still
knows very little about wine. But her relentless Tweeting and constant FaceBook
posts rank her among the most influential wine bloggers as well. It’s Social
Media, friends, it’s the quantity of the writing, not the quality.

W. Blinky Gray

W. Blinky Gray (www.blinkygray.com)
–With his trademark eyeglasses the only thing giving away his cartoon roots,
Blinky created the role of faux journalist among wine bloggers. Mixing a dull
voice with his signature lack of insight, Blinky paved the way for an entire generation of
frustrated high school newspaper reporters to discover wine blogging (which, in
turn, led to PalatePress). That self-important tone so prevalent among wine
bloggers? Thank Blinky. That air of superiority that masks a dearth of talent? A Blinky trademark! Ask him, he’s clearly one of the Most
Important Wine Bloggers.

Flo Quacious (www.icantshutupaboutwine.com)
–Flo Quacious invented the long form wine review, now a staple of wine
bloggers. She can tell you less about a wine in 500 words than a professional
wine critic can in 25. Every day she reviews a new wine and makes you think, “Why
would I put that crap in my mouth?” But producers and importers of barely
drinkable plonk love her style! After three paragraphs of a glowing review of
yet another New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc that tastes mainly of Loudmouth Lime
and Windex, who’s still awake to read that the wine was sent as a “Review
Sample?" Flo made being bought for free samples
a desirable path that hundreds of wine bloggers have since followed.

Haim Stevoff (www.haimstevoffhaimstevoffhaimstevoff.com)
–Haim led the way for professional wine critics to cast aside dignity and join
in the blogosphere conversation. A way to claim the ground that others broke, a
way that an enormous number of successful wine writers have since followed. And
why not? This road to the top is so much simpler! You already have the job that
all the bloggers want, why not just butt right in and take away all their
readers too?! Become one of the “Most Important Wine Bloggers.” It’s perfect.
It’s like Meryl Streep stepping into the cast of “Happy Endings.” You’re
surrounded by delusional people who think they have talent. Must be good for
the ego.

Jose Maestro (www.JoseMaestroofWine.com)
–You must be important if you can spend all your time making fun of everyone
else, and that’s what Jose does on his eponymous blog. The poster boy for
bloggers who think they have twice the talent they actually possess, Jose has a
genuine gift for finding amusement where none exists. His claim that he doesn’t
like any of his own work lands him squarely on the pulse of public opinion. It
is a measure of his importance that, like all wine bloggers, he speaks to the
99%. The 99% of the country that hasn’t heard of any of them.

Addendum(b): Here was the original manuscript for the post "The HoseMaster's Most Important Wine Bloggers"

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Imagine wine critic Tim Foyer’s predicament. He now tastes
wine as numbers. Once upon a time he drank wine for the pleasure it gave him,
as it gives most humans pleasure.[i]
After that, Tim became a critic for a major wine publication where his reviews
had the capacity to make or break a winery. His palate was viewed by many
consumers as skilled at detecting nuance and quality in wine.[ii]
Now a neurological imbalance had Tim’s brain generating only numbers when he
tasted wine. He wasn’t enjoying the wines at all. Which might be fine when you
consider that a wine critic’s job is to ensure that others get less enjoyment
out of wine.[iii]
However, Tim’s job was at risk should consumers discover his puzzling brain
malfunctions.

His newly developed disability had affected Tim in other
ways as well. He seemed depressed, and not just from ingesting all of that
alcohol.[iv]
Tim’s self-perception revolved around his wine tasting abilities and the power
he had in the wine business. He felt that slipping away, though, from what I
could gather, it had been slipping away long before his recent taste problems
had arisen. A new generation of wine consumers, from the so-called Millennial
Generation, were getting their wine advice from other sources and ignoring the
“wisdom” of the establishment wine critics. Foyer’s scores were having less and
less effect. And his wasn’t the only opinion that had lost influence. Impotence
was rampant among wine critics, which may have been age-related but was most
likely caused by infrequent use.[v]

Tim worked for several years at his wine critic position
while suffering from his very unusual affliction. He was experienced enough
though, and well-versed enough in his chosen wine regions, that he could taste
a wine, write down the number that instantly appeared in his mind, and then
fabricate a tasting note. No one questioned his authority, or even bothered to
read his tasting notes. In fact, it might take but thirty minutes of reading
wine tasting notes for the average person to suffer some sort of brain damage.[vi]
But Tim’s condition started to worsen.

Tim’s brain began to muddle everything to do with wine. At
an important blind tasting of Sonoma County Pinot Noir, Tim tried to remove the
corks with his publisher’s suspenders. An embarrassing moment ensued when Tim
said to his boss, whose pants[vii]
had puddled on the floor, “I can’t kiss it now, I’m trying to open these damned
wines.” No matter how many times he was shown, he couldn’t recognize a corkscrew.
He was certain it was Eric Asimov. An understandable mistake, but it won’t help
you get the corks out of the bottles.

Mishaps with wine happened on a daily basis, but only with
wine and wine paraphernalia. It was as though everything to do with wine for
this major wine critic was a hopeless confusion. Yet, remarkably, he continued
to rate wines with such conviction that no one suspected his brain disease.
Consumers continued purchasing expensive wines unaware that they were following
the advice of someone brain-damaged. Perhaps this is not so astonishing, as
that has almost always been the case in the wine business.

The deal breaker came when Tim visited a winery with his
lovely wife. He knew that he wouldn’t have to open any wine bottles himself,
though he’d invited Eric Asimov along just in case, and that he wouldn’t have
to do much more than taste a few wines, nod his head knowingly, pretend to
write tasting notes in his journal, and spit. He usually spat anyway, and
always pretended to write down tasting notes—he’d done that for twenty years.
His host served him a glass of his finest Cabernet, hoping to impress the
important wine critic. Tim savored the wine, swishing it about in his mouth, he
thought only the number 91, and then he quickly and efficiently spit the wine
all over his wife. He was certain she was a spit bucket, though she bears only
a passing resemblance to one.

His wife, an innocent victim of his delusions, was
astonished, but not more so than the winery owner when Tim said, “Hey, I’ve got
Eric Asimov in my pants if you want to talk to him.”

Though I worked with Tim for many months, and ran many brain
scans,[viii]
I have never been able to pinpoint the cause of Tim’s problem. Perhaps it’s
psychological, his desire to finally leave wine criticism before he becomes
entirely irrelevant. Or maybe my hunch about a parasite is correct and his
brain has been hijacked by a one-celled animal, similar to what happens to
women who are groupies for serial killers. At this point, we don’t know. There
are mysteries to the human mind that may never be solved.

Wine critics may just be one of them.

[i] It was
Ben Franklin who said, “Wine is proof that God loves us, and really hates
Mormons.” Which is miraculously prescient considering there were no Mormons at
the time.

[ii] An
opinion not shared by winemakers, unless they received a score of 95 or higher.

[iii]
Numerical scores are seen by the critics who use them as “necessary and
consumer friendly,” yet their sole purpose is to sell subscriptions and dictate
consumer tastes. Which everyone managed to do for hundreds of years before
numerical ratings.

[iv] Alcohol
is a serious depressant, equivalent to thinking about Rick Santorum as
President.

Monday, April 2, 2012

The brain of a wine connoisseur is not particularly
complicated. It works the same as any other person’s brain only much slower.
What is seen as contemplation, the thoughtful gaze of a wine expert as he sniffs,
the eyes gazing into an unknowable distance as he tastes, the slow, measured
writing of his tasting notes, is actually a sign that his brain is working more
slowly than most. We are on DSL, the wine connoisseur is on Dial-Up.
Neuroscience is only now beginning to understand why.

In the Fall of 2009, I received a letter from a renowned
wine critic. It was almost unreadable, in the manner of wine blogs.[i]
That is, it was dull and plodding, and overflowed with vestigial adjectives
that made little sense in the context. For example, what did “hedonistic” have
to do with “Merlot?” Or “unctuous” with “Jancis’ piehole?” It was apparent that
the author of the letter, I’ll call him “Tim Foyer,”[ii]
was desperately in need of help. I agreed to meet with him.

Tim had the haggard and world-weary
look I associate with wine experts. Liver disease had given him a lovely yellow
glow that kept away moths. When he smiled, his teeth were stained like he’d
grown up chewing betel nuts[iii]
and just this morning he had decided, like James Brown, that “Papua Got a Brand
New Bag” of them. He was distracted, and I alertly noticed that, instead of
pulling out his chair when we sat down, he pulled out his penis, twirling it
around like a lasso, and then fell squarely on his buttocks. I was to learn
later that this was a greeting favored at meetings of Master Sommeliers, though
Tim wasn’t an M.S. and it was strictly a symptom of his illness.

I was to continue to meet with Tim to try and diagnose his
condition over the next few months. During that time, I learned how his
condition had slowly developed over the years; so slowly, in fact, that he
didn’t really notice any changes in his behavior himself until the fateful day
he mistook his wife for a spit bucket. It was that episode that finally sent
him searching for help.

Tim had started his career as a sports writer, but drifted
into wine.[iv]
Through hard work and passion, he was soon one of wine’s most influential
critics. A great review from Foyer was certain to sell hundreds of cases of
wine. Wineries both courted him and feared him, but he had the sort of
disposition that could handle the notoriety.[v]
Yet he was starting to change, he told me, change he only now sees in
hindsight.

It began with numbers. Tim often tasted a hundred or more
wines in a day. He had trained his palate to work with his brain in an
efficient manner, and he could quickly write descriptive, if unnecessarily
florid, paragraphs about every wine he tasted. And then one day he couldn’t.

One day he put a particularly expensive bottle of Napa
Valley Cabernet Sauvignon in his mouth and a number appeared, “96.” He couldn’t
taste anything. Not cassis, not olive, not black cherry, not plum… His brain
insisted on a number. Tim tried another Napa Cabernet, from a less prestigious
winery. Slowly, remember he is a wine connoisseur, the number “93” was the
result. He had no idea what the wine tasted like, it could have been Italian
wine, or, God Forbid, Lake
County wine, for all he
knew. All that registered from the interaction of the wine on his tongue was
“93.” He wrote it down. He would manufacture a description later.[vi]

For many decades now, wine publications have used numbers to
convey the quality of wine. Could this be masking some kind of brain parasite
spread at industry events? Perhaps as part of its reproductive cycle, the
parasite alters the brain chemistry of the critic, rendering him unable to
experience wine as normal people experience it, that is, with pleasure and
without passing numerical judgment. Were all wine critics brain injured? Many
wine lovers would say yes, and most winemakers as well.[vii]

I decided to first investigate whether Tim “tasted” numbers
on other occasions. I asked him to lunch. I had him order a bottle of wine,
which took him a very long time considering the fact that we were in a Vietnamese
restaurant where the wine list was 90% Gruner Veltliner, which left only 10%
wines made from actual wine grapes. When the wine arrived, I had Tim taste it.
I asked him to describe the wine to me, its smell, its flavor, its texture. All
he could say was, “88.” So the jerk ordered an 88 point wine that set me back
$75. At that point I was sure his condition required Electro-shock Therapy,
applied to his favorite lasso.

When our food arrived, I asked Tim to describe the flavors.
He was quite articulate, describing his Clay Pot Catfish as tasting of “lemon
grass, Thai chili, and a fellow bottom feeder.” He could describe the flavors of each dish,
and he also commented on how my cologne smelled like “RuPaul’s gaff.” Yet the
wine was a simple “88.”

It was obvious that something was going wrong in Tim’s
brain. And that he didn’t know that much about wine. 88?

TO BE CONTINUED

[i] I wrote
about wine bloggers previously in “The People Who Mistake Typing with
Writing—Brain Damage or Cry for Help?”

[ii]
Wordplay is an important tell when diagnosing raving idiots. What’s a synonym
for “foyer?” Yes, you’re on the right
track, but the critic is not Jim Vestibule.

[iii] Not to
be confused with Yoko Ono, who grew up chewing, well, you get the idea…

[iv] There
are many drifters in the wine business. Most reputable wine writers acknowledge
this and often put the wines they review in brown paper bags, the drifter’s
trademark.

[v] Like
many actors, sports figures and elected officials, other occupations loaded
with people on Dial-Up.

[vi] It
turns out to be common practice among wine critics to simply make a list of
numbers for wines and then write some kind of imaginary description later. No
one reads the descriptions anyway, sort of like footnotes, so this isn’t seen
as disingenuous.

[vii] Though
winemakers themselves often suffer from a different kind of parasite, which the
French call “sommeliers.”

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After 19 years as a Sommelier in Los Angeles, twice named Sommelier of the Year by the Southern California Restaurant Writers' Association, I moved to Sonoma County to explore the other aspects of the wine business. I've spent, OK wasted, 35 years learning about and teaching about and swallowing wine. I am also a judge at the Sonoma Harvest Fair, San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition and the San Francisco International Wine Competition--so I can spit like a rabid llama. I know more about wine than David Sedaris and I'm funnier than James Laube. Stay tuned for an informed but jaded view of everything wine and everything else.

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